53. Jimmy Lai is China's most feared critic: Mark L. Clifford (author of "The Troublemaker")
About this episode
The episode features an interview with Jimmy Lai, a prominent critic of China, discussing his experiences and thoughts on political imprisonment.
Jimmy Lai, the 77-year-old media tycoon of British citizenship, has been detained for over five years, mostly in isolation. He is one of over 1,500 political prisoners in Hong Kong. Today's interview contains a clip of a conversation between Jimmy Lai and Natan Sharansky from November 20, 2020, one month before Lai’s arrest. Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident who spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s. “... What you said about physical survival is not important. Spiritual survival is very important. Never back down. The peak of your life is when you were in prison. I totally understand, and that is very important; because I take up the responsibility of imagining myself influencing so many people as an example. If I don’t back down then they won’t back down. So that is a responsibility that is also uplifting spirit for me. And I really thank you so much for inspiring me on this.” - Jimmy Lai in November, 2020. ( Transcript ) Mark L. Clifford is the author of “ The Troublemaker : How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic” (Simon &…
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